Has FM E-Skip ever been received in Hawaii?

[boombox4]

Skip on CB depends on the solar cycle, but there can be E skip during afternoons, and as we know, E skip is less dependent on the solar cycle than F layer skip. When the sunspot cycle was up in 1990 I used to work other states on 11 meter SSB, both with the E layer "short skip and F layer "long skip". The E skip would have me talking to California and the like, but when the sunspots were in and the F layer was active I could talk to Alaska, Louisiana and northern Mexico.

Southern US latitudes will also see more CB and 10 meter activity, there is this form of E skip called 'trans-equatorial' propagation that southern US states CBers can use to talk to Central and South America.

You'll generally hear more activity on the CB band than the 10 meter band because hams generally ignore the 10 meter band.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Tonight in Michigan, before LSS, WWV was coming in better on 25 MHz than on 20 MHz. I would think that CB would have been active, but I didn't hear anything. 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, CHU 3330 kHz and 7850 kHz, were all booming in. WWV 2500 was absent to barely heard.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Skip on CB depends on the solar cycle, but there can be E skip during afternoons, and as we know, E skip is less dependent on the solar cycle than F layer skip.

Winter is when propagation on 11 meters/27MHz is by far at its best, but mostly during daylight hours. You can have skip the rest of the year, including at night, but propagation is not as good, or often nonexistent.

 

[boombox4]

Winter is when propagation on 11 meters/27MHz is by far at its best, but mostly during daylight hours. You can have skip the rest of the year, including at night, but propagation is not as good, or often nonexistent.

When sunspots are up, you can get SSB long distance skip in the summer as well, mostly during the daylight hours. E skip seems to favor the night time or early evening hours.

From 2011-2014 or so, afternoons I'd invariably hear Mexican and Latin American SSB CBers in the outbands, and this was summer as well as winter. Those frequencies would start fading out after 6-7 p.m., but the US sideband channels still were active later than that.

I know that the F2 layer can kick in during the Fall on the CB band, but when the sunspot cycle is high, it's no different than any other high frequency SW band -- be it SWBC or HF ham band (15-10 meters).

 

[boombox4]

Tonight in Michigan, before LSS, WWV was coming in better on 25 MHz than on 20 MHz. I would think that CB would have been active, but I didn't hear anything. 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, CHU 3330 kHz and 7850 kHz, were all booming in. WWV 2500 was absent to barely heard.

Early in the afternoon I heard a handful of SSBers on channel 38 (27385), but the reception was really weak, and the rest of the CB band (legal and outband) was dead. I didn't check WWV on 20 or 25 Mhz, but 10 Mhz was s1 and grainy. Poor conditions overall.

Only one CW transmission on 20 meters, rest of the band was dead. 15 meters was totally MIA.

 

[gar hi]

Thanks for all the info!

Since the CB is at the upper end of shortwave, it only makes sense that skip would be a lot more common than as you go higher up in VHF.

I have good memories of when I was a teenager during the CB craze and my father had one in his car.

Many times, we heard people from other parts of the country as well as if they were not far from us on the same road.

 

[Kelly A]

Back in the late 80's I was sitting on a beach in Kauai with a portable radio, and heard a Seattle non-comm FM station like a local. Surprised the Hell out of me, since it was a station I worked with. Great example of extreme VHF ducting.

 

[boiseengineer]

E-skip on VHF can travel great distances. California to Hawaii has happened many times.

There are TV DXers in Portugal that have received the Channel 2 in Buenos Aires, around 6,000 miles away.

That was probably F2 skip. I used to hear BBC Ch 1 44.5 MHz & Ch 2 48.15 in Idaho occasionally on F2 before they were shut down.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

From what I heard, that was one reason North America stopped using Channel 1, 44-50 MHz. Too frequent Sporadic E and F2 Layer skip.

The founder of Radiosoft devised a 16 foot home made Dish, which could be rotated and elevated, and he identified some 35 Channel 2s with it, under fairly average conditions. The gain was high enough to drive the signals into a much higher probability of below free space loss region.

 

[gar hi]

With all this talk of skip, realizing FM E Skip in Hawaii is virtually nonexistent, and my nostalgia for the CB radio days, I ordered a hand held CB radio on a whim.

Since I didn't want to spend too much money, I got this one brand new which I think is a model from the 80's or 90's?



I can attach a better external antenna too and since multi hop E's and F2 is much more common at those frequencies, I may have a chance at talking to someone on the mainland.

And I certainly don't expect it to be that easy but here where I am with AM DXing out of season and nothing on FM going on, it will at least keep me occupied in the DXing hobby. 😌

 

[radioman148]

Good luck and let us know what you hear.

 

[kenglish]

Back in the late 80's I was sitting on a beach in Kauai with a portable radio, and heard a Seattle non-comm FM station like a local. Surprised the Hell out of me, since it was a station I worked with. Great example of extreme VHF ducting.

I hope you sent them a Reception Report, and told them they have a great engineer.

 

[gar hi]

Here's some CB skip from the mainland to Hawaii I found.

Keep in mind, these standard more expensive car CB radios still only use the same 4 watts power as the hand held ones.

 

[gar hi]

Wow. The Maui SDR is lit up with people from the mainland right now from 26.9 to 27.4 MHz which would be channels 1 to 40.

It will likely go away when gets dark.

http://kiwisdr.robinett.us:8073/